


Spilling Wine in the Bathtub

by afterism



Category: Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prohibition Era, F/F, Minor Violence, Moonshine, Speakeasies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 14:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13032831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterism/pseuds/afterism
Summary: This batch won't be ruined just because her idiot cousin dropped the pipes down the stairs while they were hauling it all out from the basement.





	Spilling Wine in the Bathtub

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nerissa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerissa/gifts).



> Dear Nerissa, your prompts were amazing and I wanted to write every single historical AU about these two, but I couldn't resist flappers and car chases. Happy holidays!
> 
> Huge thanks to htbthomas, rosefox and angelsaves for the beta, and to Taylor for the title and for writing a song about how she wants to sleep with her best friend.

" _Fuck_ ," Selena says, snatching her hand back a second too late as the copper slips under her fingers. Steam curls over her skin, slick and scalding, and she shoves her hand into the barrel of rainwater and glares at the rag that's slopped onto the floor, soaking wet and useless.

She's been leaving black smudges everywhere — she can't tend the furnace and hold the condenser together at the same time but she's been trying to anyway, hopping from one end of the still to the other and putting more faith in an old handkerchief than she ever should.

Water hisses on the smooth side of the still as she flicks her hand dry and sucks on the smarting pad of her index finger. Right. This batch won't be ruined just because her idiot cousin dropped the pipes down the stairs while they were hauling it all out from the basement.

"No," she says, then " _No_ ," as the pipe starts to twist away from the column. For a moment there's a lull in the rain, just long enough to hear the dogs barking up at the house, distant and familiar, then the wind turns again and rain hammers down on the sheet metal roof. One-handed, she tugs loose the scarf holding her hair back and catches the join in bright red rayon, tugging it back into place and tying a knot with more fabric than finesse.

The knot holds steady. She breathes.

The pot is overheated and too much water is winding its way around the condenser, but it's salvageable — later. With her hand wrapped in a soot-stained cloth, she closes up the grill under the furnace and steps outside, walking under dripping branches until she reaches the edge of the trees, the empty cornfield stretching out endlessly.

At least the barn is well-hidden, although calling it a barn is generous. The roof leaks and half the walls have fallen away, the planks of wood rotted and green with algae. The surrounding trees hide it from the road and the creek and the wind, but the rain drips through like spilled liquor and the weather in New Jersey is all wrong; too damp, too cold, the ground too slippery when it's raining and the sun too weak when it's not. The thought of seeing real snow for the first time gets less appealing with each shortening day.

God, she never thought she would miss Texas.

Something red flashes at the end of the field, and under the noise of the wind it's a moment before the steady roar of an engine reaches her; fast, and getting closer. Her wet hair is plastering itself to her face and Selena scrubs it away with the back of her hand, fingers loose and curled, and narrows her eyes at the watery grey shadows until her breath catches.

She keeps the track down here as narrow and overgrown as possible — even after the harvest, the furrows across the field don't come anywhere near the tree line — but there's a sleek-lined roadster she's never seen before bouncing along it, and Selena's heart thunders in her chest. Her shine-red fingers are hot and pulsing as she drops her hand and takes a step back, the grass slick under her sole.

She should run. She should stay and smile and do anything to stop them taking a look between the trees. She should — fuck, she didn't even bring a shotgun down with her — she should —

The car stops at the edge of the brush, a clear hundred yards away, and Selena finds herself twisting the black-smudged cloth around her palm, tight enough to hurt. There's movement inside the car, and when something long and metal flashes beside the car door for a breath it's like she's been dropped into the creek — but it's just an umbrella, huge and black and unfolding as the door opens.

A raindrop slips down the back of her shirt, but Selena bites her lip and doesn't shift — and then she breathes, as what must be one incredibly lost flapper is hurrying across the field towards her.

"Hi!" the girl calls, waving with one hand as the other keeps the umbrella angled across her shoulder. Her dress is covered in enough sequins to catch sparkles even in this grey light. Her hair is blonde and bobbed and in tight finger curls as stiff as a cap. Even at this distance she looks impossibly tall, her dress skimming high around her knees and acres of legs below, but when she reaches the top of the nearest furrow Selena realises this city girl is striding along in well-worn yard boots, cornstalks crunching under the soles.

Selena shoves the cloth into a back pocket, and opens her mouth. "Can I help you?" comes out.

"Sure hope so," blonde girl says, her lipstick red and perfect as she smiles. She wraps both hands around the handle of her umbrella and sets her feet steady in the mud, and Selena is suddenly, uncomfortably aware of how soaked and disheveled and soot-smudged she must look: her hair loose and curling into rat tails, her too-large pants splattered with mud, her once-white shirt going see-through at the shoulders as the rain drips down her neck. "You're a hard woman to find," this perfectly put-together goddess says, as Selena tucks her thumbs into the hooks of her suspenders and bites the inside of her cheek.

"Didn't know anyone was looking," Selena says, lifting her chin.

There's an edge in the dark corner of this woman's smile, something glinting in the way she holds Selena's gaze and doesn't glance away. "My last supplier sprung a leak," she says. "I heard your whiskey is the best this side of Maryland."

Selena, for a beat, doesn't react, and then she lets her smile fall apologetic and simple as she shrugs, glancing back up the field. "I wouldn't know anything about that. Try up at the house," she says. _Where the guns are._ Her cousins don't know the first thing about making shine, but they know how to protect it.

City girl smiles, quick and sharp as a switch blade. "Joe already sent me down here. He said he'd mentioned I might be dropping by."

Selena frowns. _Joe_ has talked a lot of bull since she moved up here in the summer, big promises and bigger let-downs, but there was something he said, a big (of course) opportunity up in New York, something about a speakeasy under a dressmaker's, or —

"You're _Taylor_?" Selena asks, narrowing her eyes.

"He left out some details, huh?" Taylor says, and flashes her teeth.

Selena says, "Yeah, he's a real pip."

Taylor steps closer, the umbrella covering them both, and Selena can smell gas and leather and something floral, expensive and touchable. She has a sudden, nonsense urge to bottle it, to see what it's like heated and distilled.

It's possible she needed the fresh air.

"Is there somewhere dry we could talk it over?" Taylor asks.

"Talk what over, exactly?" Selena says, hitching up her shoulders. She immediately regrets it, her shirt clinging wet and cold across her back.

"Whatever it is that's keeping you out here in the sticks when you could be making real dough in the city," Taylor says, the curl of her mouth softening it, and Selena's watching her lips as Taylor looks up and past her, narrowing her eyes at the treeline. "Your operation's back there, right? Can I get a tour?"

For the space of a heartbeat, Selena considers all the reasons she should say no — but she's never seen a Revenue agent who looks like this, and she's never known one to ask permission. She wants — God, she _wants_ to say yes.

"It ain't exactly dry," Selena says, but she takes a step back anyway, raindrops sudden and freezing on her arm for just a beat before Taylor is moving, keeping the umbrella over Selena more than herself. "And besides," Selena says, an odd warmth in her chest from the thrill of it as she stares straight ahead, "I got plenty of business out here."

Taylor hums, keeping step with her easily as they cross the rough grass at the edge of the field and walk between the trees. It's only a few steps before the barn is visible: a dark shape the same color as the surrounding trunks, the only light a soft orange glow leaking out from the one lantern Selena allows herself in these flat grey days. The barn doors are permanently open: the hinges rusted immovable on one side, the door stuck fast in the mud on the other. There are a couple of metal sheets leaning against one side that Selena has to pull across the gap whenever she leaves.

"Is that it?" Taylor asks, her tone unreadable.

"Anything sturdier and someone might get curious," Selena explains, lifting one shoulder (regretting it immediately, again. _Ugh_ ).

It's a small space; she only has the one still, and a few barrels where the mash for the next batch is gently heating over warm coals. Selena stops close to the furnace, the blackened bricks still kicking out enough heat that her finger throbs. Taylor closes up her umbrella and strides over to where the tap at the bottom of the condenser is still dripping off-beat, the jar underneath half full and perfectly clear.

"Can I?" Taylor asks, her hand hovering over it.

Selena shrugs. "I can't guarantee how quickly it'll get you drunk, but I promise it won't turn you blind."

Taylor tilts a grin her way, and the air must still be thick with fumes because Selena feels it land somewhere low in her stomach. With one quick move, Taylor dips in her little finger up to the second knuckle and catches it in her mouth, not spilling a drop, and Selena swallows in the same beat as her.

Taylor drops her hand and twists her lips to the side, her eyebrows drawing up. "That's got a kick," she says, slightly rough, and swallows again. Selena presses her lips together to hide her grin. "Harsh but kinda sweet. I like it," Taylor says, and she licks her lips once before turning to Selena properly, setting one hand on her hip as the other rests on the handle of her umbrella. "How much do you want per bottle?"

And here's the problem: Selena never agreed to any of this. She knows where every drop of her shine goes — hell, she sees half of her customers every time she has to go into town. She's perfectly _in control_.

"Didn't say I was selling," Selena says, folding her arms.

Taylor's eyes light up — she looks _delighted_ , and Selena frowns. "You got enough local customers?" Taylor asks.

Selena shrugs, holding onto her elbows as she glances away. "The sheriff is one of my best, and he keeps the Revenue boys off my back. He wouldn't take too kindly to me shipping out of state."

"I pay better," Taylor says, taking a step forward, and her gaze snags on the scarf tied around the top of the pipes. "And I can get you better equipment."

Selena purses her lips, and says, "I don't make this so it can be watered down to pigswill and passed off as something else."

"I don't water down my goods," Taylor says, and Selena looks at her. "Unless there's a problem with supply," Taylor adds, and then grins as Selena narrows her eyes. "But with you just down the road? That'll be no problem at all."

"A four-hour round trip ain't exactly down the road," Selena says, feeling wild and confrontational — but hell, she wouldn't be doing this at all if she didn't kinda love the way it makes her heart race, and the way Taylor looks at her makes her chest feel like someone's poured moonshine in the engine.

It's been a lifetime and a thousand miles since someone last made her feel like this; unbalanced, untethered, recklessness in her fingertips. It's another reason to say no.

Taylor takes another step closer. "Think it over, okay?" she says, her smile soft. "I promise I'll make it worth your while."

She should definitely say no.

"Convince me," her mouth says.

Taylor draws in a breath, lips parted, eyes bright. "Okay," she says, her voice slinking low like a secret, an invitation to lean closer. "I'm having a dinner party next week, favorite people only. You should come."

"Maybe," Selena says, wetting her lips, her mouth dry.

Taylor's lips purse like she's trying to keep her smile under control, and then she's stepping back and looking out at the woods. The rain has settled to a gentle drizzle, just the odd tap up on the roof as the trees drip.

"I'll see you soon," Taylor promises, and she walks to the edge of the dirt-packed barn floor as she unfolds her umbrella and leans it against her shoulder. She glances back once, just long enough to pitch one last grin over her shoulder, before she strides off between the trees.

The floor is the only sturdy thing in here, so Selena waits until she hears the engine purr into life and then sits down sharply, resting her elbows on her knees and hiding her face in her hands, her hair cascading around her cheeks like a curtain.

Her shoulders shake as she laughs, lightheaded and untethered.

 

\---

 

Two days later, when Selena is only half-awake and pulling on her boots, a wooden box addressed to her arrives.

Inside it's just three coconuts, carefully wrapped up in red tissue paper. They're heavier than she expects when she hefts each one out onto her bed, watching them shift and roll and clunk together in the middle of her mattress.

There's a note tied to the top of the box:

_You'll be in great company.  
\- T.S._

Selena looks at the coconuts again. There's a tiny cork in each one, stopping up the tiny, carefully drilled hole. Selena sighs.

(She tries them all, when she's done all she can for the day and dusk has long since closed in. There's a rum that's too sour and a bourbon that's too sweet, but the gin is sublime. She gives the first two to Joe as a begrudging kind of thank you. She keeps the gin.)

 

A couple of days later, Selena is the first one back to the house in the afternoon, everything bottled or malting or fermenting and out of her immediate control, and there's another box on the doorstep of the farmhouse. A car she's never seen before is driving off up the track.

She approaches the door slow and cautious. The steps creak under her feet as she stays as far back as possible, wrapping a hand around the balustrade like she might need to leap over it any moment — and then she spots her name written across the top of the box in familiar handwriting, and has to suck in a sharp breath to stop the swell of something unnameable in her chest.

This box is different, just cardboard and colored paper, but it feels as heavy as the coconuts when she picks it up and lugs it to her room at the far end of the house. Selena sets it on her bed and lifts the lid, pressing her lips together when more red tissue paper puffs up in the draft and jostles the slip of white paper set on top.

 _For the next time we get caught in the rain,_ the note says, and this time it's just signed with an _x_. Underneath all the paper is a shiny, heavy hair dryer.

A giggle ripples up in her throat, and Selena presses her fingertips to her mouth and finds herself laughing anyway.

Later, Selena finds Joe in the cattle barn and leans her shoulder against the door frame, folding her arms as he carries on shifting straw.

"Do you have Taylor's address?" she calls, when he doesn't notice her.

"What?" he calls back, not stopping, and that goes on for a while. Selena's clenching her fists by the time she gets a shrug of an answer out of him.

"Never asked," he says, leaning on his pitchfork.

"Well, where did you meet her?"

"This, uh. Place. It might have been in a club. Or under a club? I'm pretty sure it was near the river."

Selena says, "What the hell, Joe."

 

Three days after that, a small flat box in a delicate shade of blue arrives, waiting on her bed when Selena gets back from the yard.

It's a scarf: light and long and a deep rich red that makes her think of lipstick. It feels like silk when she runs it between her fingers. It smells like Taylor's perfume.

Selena winds it loose and careful around her palm, teasing the edge along her fingertips, and with her free hand rustles through the pale blue tissue paper to find the note until something hidden underneath glints, brassy and bright. The paper crackles as she shoves it back. A flat roll of copper, thin and pliable and perfect for making her still last a little longer, is nestled at the bottom of the box like secret treasure.

There's a card tied to the roll with a loop of red ribbon.

_For you, whether you say yes or not. Please come tomorrow. I'll send a car to pick you up in the afternoon around 5.  
\- xx_

A smile tugs at her mouth. Selena bites her lip for a beat before the grin spreads wide and inescapable as Texas sunlight, warmth flooding through her stomach and her chest and her fingertips.

 

\---

 

Selena spots the car when it's still half a mile away, the hood flashing in the low-slanted sun.

She has, for various reasons, been ready for nearly an hour, and has spent the last half of it sitting on the steps of the porch, her back against the newel post and her legs stretched out across the floorboards. It helped that she only really has one nice dress, the one pretty thing she brought up from Texas — it's black and covered in sequins and silver thread, the skirt made mostly of fringe that spills over her thighs.

If she brought any makeup she can't find it, but her shoes match and catch the light with every flex of her ankle, and her hair is curled and pinned back, and if only it weren't so damned cold she could walk out just like this — but instead she has her aunt's coat, the one that's older than her, draped over her shoulders. At least it smells more like old leather than a cattle barn.

She drums her fingers against the boards and swallows down the bubble of nerves that's kept her here waiting, not daring to miss her ride. It's nonsensical. She can't remember the last time she felt like this, like there's electricity in her bones. If she's honest, if she can take a moment to wrangle her thoughts to anything other than seeing Taylor again, Selena's looking forward to having someone else to grill about her. Joe has been as useful as a side saddle on a sow.

The car pulls up on the sweep of track outside the house — another one she's never seen before, four doors and a short hood — and then her breath catches when _Taylor_ steps out of the driver's side door and waves with the sunlight behind her, outlined in gold.

"Hi," Selena says, barely aware of her body as she gets to her feet.

"I thought you might have a guy with a shotgun waiting out here for me," Taylor says, but she's smiling and Selena can't help but grin back, crossing the short grass to meet Taylor halfway. There's a bite of cold in the air, the smell of dust and hay.

"I've got him guarding the barrels in the barn," Selena says, and catches her lip between her teeth when Taylor laughs. Her dress is the color of a summer sunrise, sparkling with every breath, and Selena's fingertips itch.

"You ready to go?" Taylor asks, and Selena nods. The warmth thrumming under her skin is so bright and steady that for a moment she considers just leaving this hideous coat behind — but Taylor strides over the passenger door and holds it open, smiling that soft smile, and Selena's feet are moving before she can twitch her fingers.

The only car Selena has been in recently is a truck that she shares with three farm boys. She climbs in, her dress slipping easily across the leather, and all she can think is that this one is so _clean_.

"You look incredible, by the way," Taylor says, casual as anything, and shuts the door.

"Oh, God," Selena says faintly, and then, "You too," with a smile as Taylor opens the driver side door and slides inside. There's a flicker of tongue as Taylor wets her lips, setting her feet in front of the pedals, and Selena settles back on the bench and silently twists her fingers in the edge of her coat.

"I sure hope you like singing, because that's all I've got to keep me going on these long drives," Taylor says, her hand on the ignition, and Selena just grins.

 

They work their way through "Shine On, Harvest Moon" and "Blue Skies", and Selena tries to teach Taylor a song from back home that she only half remembers. She's kicked off her coat and her shoes and tucked her legs up underneath her, her arm resting on the back of the seat as every inch of her angles itself towards Taylor, and her cheeks are starting to ache from how much she can't stop smiling.

The sun sinks low behind them, dusk rolling in fast up ahead, and when Selena stretches her arms up she catches a glimpse of the empty back seat.

"Are we picking up someone else?" Selena asks, without thinking.

"No, I just needed the space for a little extra Champagne," Taylor says, and must catch something in Selena's expression when she glances over. "Don't worry, it's already picked up and stashed under the seat. Besides, the cops don't search girls," she says, flashing her teeth.

"No wonder every doll who keeps a flask in her garter thinks she could do this," Selena says.

Taylor tilts her head, and says, "I've got better use for my garters than holding a mouthful of gin."

Selena looks away, resting her hand on one suddenly warm cheek as she stares out at the road ahead. She feels Taylor's glance like a clap of thunder, stiffening her spine.

"So, was it the promise of all those girls flashing their garters that brought you up here?" Taylor says, and a laugh startles its way out of Selena's throat.

"Maybe," Selena says, grinning down at her own thigh for a moment as she plays with the silver fringe of her dress. "It was — well, I call them my cousins but I have no idea how we're related. My grandma knows their mom, I don't know," Selena says, flapping one hand in the air. "I just know they needed someone who could work a still while their pa was laid up from that shoot-out, and I was looking for a ride out of Texas."

"Trouble?" Taylor asks, looking at her out of the corner of her eye as she keeps her hands steady on the wheel.

"Only the fun kind," Selena says, her chin raised as she watches the fields flash by.

They cross a river as dusk slips across the sky, and Selena cranes her neck to watch the water flowing south.

"If I agree," Selena starts, and catches the way Taylor straightens her shoulders, turns her head a fraction towards her without looking away from the road — "If I agree, how are you planning on getting everything into New York?"

"I've got a few routes," Taylor says, shrugging with one shoulder. "And there's that river that runs through your farm."

Selena turns to look at her, resting her jaw on one curled hand. "You know where that ends up?"

"Raritan Bay," Taylor says, and shoots a grin across the bench.

"You've been checking me out?"

Taylor tilts her jaw, pressing her lips together for a beat. "I checked out a lot of places around here and up in Connecticut, but you're the only one I want," she says, and then she blinks, adjusting her grip on the wheel as a faint blush floods her cheeks.

It's the first time she's looked anything less than perfectly composed, and Selena's stomach dips with a warning curl of heat.

Taylor starts humming another song, something from a musical. Selena can recognise the tune but doesn't know a single word, so she makes them up and catches Taylor's swiping hand when she's laughing too hard to tell her to stop. Buildings blossom out of the earth as they pass through town after town, the street lights setting everything white and blue in the almost-night.

New York sits glowing on the horizon, bright below the black, and Selena holds her breath and lets the thrum of the engine echo in her bones.

 

\---

 

"Don't be nervous, I've told everyone about you and they're so excited to meet you," Taylor says, her arm looped through Selena's and her smile dazzling.

"What," Selena says, but Taylor is pushing open the door to her apartment and there's a chorus of cheers, the sound of loud jazz and louder conversations rushing out to meet her. Taylor catches her eye, everything about her bright and golden and excited, and Selena feels her spiral of nerves settle as suddenly as a stoppered bottle.

She grins back, and lets Taylor lead her inside.

"Everyone, this is Selena," Taylor calls, her arm warm and stable around the top of Selena's arm. Her apartment has high ceilings and silk draped everywhere; gold accents and bright rugs and more people than Selena expected for a _dinner party_. There's a phonograph set prominently near the far wall, singing out through the tall open windows, and model-esque girls are dancing with their skirts flipping wide and beautiful around their thighs.

"At last!" one woman says, approaching Taylor and wrapping an arm around her shoulders in a quick cheek-to-cheek hug. She pulls back and grins at Selena, offering a hand, and Selena is feeling shorter with every Amazon that comes close.

"Karlie, Selena," Taylor introduces, looking proud as a parent at both of them, and then she spots something happening in the kitchen and hurries off with a sudden last squeeze of Selena's hand.

"Our new hope," Karlie says, and takes Taylor's place beside her, linking their arms close and intimate. If she wasn't already so caught up on Taylor, another gorgeous woman grinning down at her might have been a problem. "Please tell me you brought something for us to try."

Selena looks around, at the swell of people dancing and the trays of cocktail glasses and the bright glow of so much glitter, and plunges in.

"I'm not in the charity business," she says, smiling sweetly, and Karlie laughs in delight.

"Let me show you off," Karlie says, and spins her into the party.

Within minutes she has a drink in her hand and a different girl on her arm — Cara, she was introduced as, with dramatic eyes and her hair in a close Eton crop — who shows her the dining room laid out in harlequin designs, salads and seafood and delicate little things on pale discs.

"She did a lot of it this morning, before she had to rush off and get you," Cara says, biting a shrimp in half, and whisks them both off to refill her Champagne glass.

She hears a lot of names and a lot of glimpses of Taylor's life — every other person eager to say, "The first time was at her club, the one under—," and "Oh, for me it was the one above—," and, "Nonsense, it was the one backstage at that theater." Taylor seems to collect fascinating people like photographs, her lounge full of actresses and singers and girls who just smile with sharp white teeth when asked how they know the hostess. The few men in the room seem to be hanging on the arms of beautiful girls, and not a single person has put a hand too low on her back and called her _doll_. It's _wonderful_.

Taylor seems to find her every few minutes, touching her wrist and making sure her drink is full, or catching her hand when she's dancing with one of her new friends and twirling her close, bright and laughing. She finds her again when Selena is cooling off by the open window, a few drinks down and watching the lights in Central Park with single-minded fascination.

"Having fun?" Taylor asks, radiant and glorious when Selena turns to her. The chandelier behind her looks like a crown.

"Yes," Selena says, emphatically, and extends a hand. Taylor takes it with a grin, and stumbles happily down onto the gilt-edged ottoman when Selena tugs.

Selena rests her head on Taylor's bare shoulder, lifts her glass up, and says, "Oh." It's empty.

She feels Taylor's laugh more than she hears it, echoing across her skin. "I'll get you a whole bathtub full of Champagne if you say yes," Taylor says, and Selena laughs, drunk and giddy with happiness, and leans her head back against the window frame as the world tilts. An autumn breeze curls around her neck, and she's so flushed that it feels like a welcome breath of clarity.

"Come on," Taylor says, her eyes dark and close. "Collaborate with me."

She's known her answer since she watched Taylor walk away in the rain. Selena blinks slowly, a soft smile woven across her lips, and says, "Yes."

Taylor pulls her up to dance, and the rest of the night blurs golden; dancing with her shoes off and Taylor's hostess skills turning politely aggressive when she thinks someone needs to eat; the apartment emptying as the night tips toward dawn; trying to make hot cocoa without waking the girl asleep on the couch; stumbling into Taylor's room and collapsing on opposite sides of her bed, laughing helplessly at something already forgotten. Finding each other's hands across the duvet and linking fingers. A sleepy goodnight that trails off into nothing.

 

\---

 

Her headache wakes up before she does, and is waiting for her.

She never wants to move again. Selena's vaguely aware this isn't her bed, the mattress like a cloud underneath her, but beyond that she simply doesn't care.

Something itches under her arm, and when she flops a hand over to scratch it she realises she's still wearing last night's dress, and something warm and light is covering her. She rubs her feet together experimentally, rayon over bare skin. No shoes, then. Probably a good thing.

She goes back to sleep without ever really deciding to.

 

"Gloria, no," someone says, and Selena rolls over with a low-throated groan and blinks her unwilling eyes open.

There's a flat-faced cat staring at her — and just beyond that is Taylor, propped up on one elbow, her hair a mess and her lipstick wiped off to a faint blush, and Selena feels the lazy stirrings of warmth even below the rolling nausea. Oh, hell.

"Good morning. Sorry about this one, you're kinda in her spot," Taylor says, and flops back down onto the pillow in a flurry of curls. After a moment her hand reaches out blindly and catches Gloria around the middle, trying to pull her away from Selena's face, but Gloria makes a chirruping sort of noise and wriggles away to stalk off across the blankets.

Taylor doesn't move her hand back, her face hidden behind the tumble of her hair. Her bare shoulder is peeking out from under the blankets, the strap of last night's dress scrunched up near her neck, and Selena buries her face in the pillow as gravity tries to grab her from an unexpected direction.

"I should probably head back home," Selena says, quiet and without conviction.

"Nmgbh," Taylor says, and then turns her head and _pffts_ the hair out of her mouth. "Nonsense, I'm taking you for breakfast so we can," she pauses, grimaces, swallowing as she flaps one hand in the air. "Figure out the details of our new partnership."

Something about the light makes Selena think they've probably missed breakfast, but she really can't bring herself to care.

 

\---

 

Midnight, a week later, and a truck emblazoned across the side with _Floretti Florists_ pulls up behind the farmhouse.

Selena stands on the back porch, wrapped up in the fur-edged coat that Taylor lent her and which she has no intention of ever giving back. She's got a dozen full crates and her barely awake cousins to help load it, everything planned and perfect, but it still feels like someone's strapped firecrackers to her feet.

The truck doors creak open and slam. Selena's the only one with a lit lantern and it takes a moment before she can work out the three people heading towards the house, and — of course Taylor is here. Of course.

"Don't you have guys for this kind of thing?" Selena asks.

Taylor looks at her. "Where's the fun in that?"

Selena lifts her lantern up, holds it for a second, and near the trees Joe and Nick uncover their own lights by the crates and start hauling them towards the back of the truck. She can work out the silhouette of Karlie, too tall to be anyone else, and Cara's profile when she steps near the light.

Taylor nods, and they both slip back to open up the truck doors.

"I figured you'd been doing this a lot longer than I had," Taylor says, looking at where Selena's foot is tapping restlessly on the floorboards. Her hand skims along the handrail as she walks up the porch steps.

"I'm out of practice," Selena admits. She remembers the motions but tonight is the first time the farm has seen anything like this, handoffs in the middle of the night, secret signals and guns just out of sight, just in case. Their operation up until now has been a few crates hidden among hay bales, pleasant house calls and the odd bottle slipped into a pocket. It's been _easy_.

Taylor steps up beside her, her arm just brushing Selena's shoulder, and something inside her unknots and settles. They watch their teams load up the van, quiet and efficient; the boys too tired to be rowdy, the girls too well trained.

"We should celebrate," Taylor says, suddenly, and turns to her with a smile as inviting as lemonade on a hot day. "Come back to the city with us. There's space in the back."

This was not part of the plan. Taylor _being here_ wasn't part of the plan — Selena was supposed to see her truck off and go to bed and spend the rest of the night comfortably aware that it was somebody else's problem.

"I don't make a habit of riding along with my moonshine," Selena says, frowning.

"It'll be fine," Taylor says, with more hope than assurance. "We've never used this truck going this way before."

The problem is, Taylor could say anything and Selena would still want to say yes. If she goes to bed now, she knows she won't sleep.

"Give me a minute to get changed," Selena says, and hurries off into the house.

When she comes back out, her nicest dress on under Taylor's coat and her derringer strapped to her thigh, the truck is loaded up and ready to go. Joe and Nick's heavy boots stomped through the house a few minutes ago and now everything is dark and quiet, just the blocked black silhouette of the truck interrupting the familiar shadows.

The shape leaning against the driver side door resolves into Taylor when she gets close — Karlie and Cara must already be waiting inside — and the truck creaks when Taylor pushes herself off and meets Selena a few steps away.

The sky is too thick with clouds to see much of anything, even with the waxing half-moon.

"Hi," Taylor says, and her voice is only a notch louder than the wind stirring the tops of the trees. They're standing almost toe to toe, close enough to see the shape of each other, and somehow it feels like there's copper on Selena's tongue, the air like there's thunder on the horizon.

"Ready when you are," Selena says, her cheeks warm for no damn reason.

She can hear Taylor's breath, can taste a thread of her perfume with every inhale.

"Thank you for saying yes," Taylor says, not specifying which time, and then Taylor's lips are against her cheek and gone again in the next heartbeat, and Taylor is tucking her arm through Selena's and leading her around to the back of the truck.

The surprise of seeing actual flowers in there stops her as sure as an anchor thrown down in a storm.

"Watch your step — here," Cara says, from somewhere in the darkness, and emerges enough to help her up and get her settled on the narrow benches near the front. Her eyes are adjusting to the night, finding the shapes easier, and what she thought was the hard back of the driver's cab is just a painted curtain, split down the middle so anyone can easily slip from one side to the other. It means every door is a ready exit for everyone.

Selena breathes out, and wraps her hands around the edge of the bench.

 

They get almost to New York before trouble hits.

It hasn't exactly been pleasant, sitting sideways on a hard wooden bench as the truck jolts and rattles its way along, but the sharp edge of nerves has settled to a dull shine of excitement and sitting in the dark with these three is more fun than tracing the cracks on her bedroom ceiling.

The first gunshot strikes the side of the truck like a pine cone falling on the metal-patched roof of her barn, shockingly loud and sudden.

Cara hisses like a wildcat, her hands blurring in the dark, and they're both thrown sideways as the tires squeal and Taylor jerks the wheel one way and the other, sliding them out of an almost-spin and hurtling on straight.

The next gunshot sounds further forward, like it glanced off the hood, and Selena goes cold. Light flashes through the black; there are headlights behind them, whiting out the small windows set in the back doors, and in the brief dazzling brightness Selena can see the hard line of Cara's jaw and the tommy gun in her hands.

"Hold on tight," Cara says, her smile all teeth, and heads for the doors.

"Who the hell is shooting at us?" Selena shouts through the curtain.

"It ain't the cops," Karlie calls back, the lilt to her voice almost like she's laughing, and when Selena hooks back the edge of the fabric she can see the shotgun on Karlie's lap and her hand on the door, the window squeaking shrill and fast as she winds it down.

The wind howls through the van sudden and loud as Cara punches open one side of the back doors and braces herself on the floor; Selena shoves her hand through the strap that runs along the inside of the van walls and locks herself onto it, a breath before Cara opens fire and everything turns wild.

Shots pepper along the side and Taylor keeps the van steady, even as Selena flinches with every hit. _Out of practice_ , Selena thinks, and lets the laugh shudder through her before it's drowned under gunfire. Her chest is pounding and she can see buildings flashing past, white street lamps and the occasional other car fishtailing in their wake as tumbling flowers and spent bullets spill out around Cara.

There's a pop, and the car with the bright headlights slides from one side of the road to the other, one tire disintegrating, and Cara stops firing as their truck hurtles on faster.

Her ears ring in the sudden absence of hammering gunfire, her blood and the engine both roaring, but as Selena gasps for breath she catches the end of the conversation up in the cab.

"We got time?" Taylor asks, high and rushed.

"I'll make time," Karlie says.

Taylor says, "I'll take Selena," and then she's climbing over the bench and through the curtain with the shotgun under one arm. "Plan B," she shouts to Cara, who nods and rolls to the other side of the van, leaving the door wide and empty, and then Taylor is looking at her with pink cheeks and whiskey-bright eyes.

"Hold on," she says, her teeth bright as she crouches down and grabs onto the bench beside Selena's thigh with one hand and the shotgun with the other. Selena finds Taylor's fingers in the darkness, covering Taylor's knuckles with her palm, and for a breath the light slants across Taylor's face and everything else falls away, the world narrowing to the sweep of her eyelashes and the secrets tucked in the corner of her mouth.

The headlights are still following them, a little further away but still close, and everyone holds on as Karlie starts weaving them through side roads and sharp corners. Newark flashes past the open door: flat-fronted houses and empty streets, the wind howling through the truck as it creaks and squeals through every turn. The headlights behind disappear for a few seconds every time.

"Get ready," Taylor says, not specifying for _what_ , and then the tires are protesting to a halt and Selena's thrown sideways, her shoulder wrenching from where she's clinging onto the strap. Taylor flips her hand, grabbing Selena by the wrist, and muscle memory burns through her thighs as suddenly they're up and throwing themselves out of the back door, airborne and lungs bursting before her feet hit the road hard and only Taylor's grip keeps her going, racing for the ink-black shadows of the sidewalk.

The engine is roaring again, the truck speeding off without them. Taylor pulls her into the gap between two rough-brick buildings and Selena can hear her own blood in her ears, the ragged drag of their lungs, and Taylor is lifting up the shotgun and another engine is clamoring close.

"Let me," Selena's mouth says — her body always did move a step ahead of her brain — and she has the gun out of Taylor's hands and keeps it pointed down, the muzzle firmly in the shadows so it can't glint in the street lights.

"My girls are waiting up ahead," Taylor breathes close to her ear, her breath running warm and damp across her neck, and Selena can feel the thunderstorm under her skin, every bone and muscle and thought perfectly aligned as her finger curls around the trigger guard. She's more alive right now than in all of her months of hiding combined.

She got out of Texas to avoid this kind of thing. God, she missed it so much.

A bullet-punched car screams past, one tire blown out completely and running on the rim, but there are two guys in the front seat and both look angry and unharmed.

Selena lifts the shotgun, and aims.

The car is almost at the next corner when she pulls the trigger — one bullet hits a back tire, the other someone inside, and then the street is empty and rapid gunfire is booming out of sight.

Lights start flicking on in the houses further down, and Selena sweeps back in one move and flattens herself in the shadows, eyes closed. Every sensation feels made anew; the hot metal under her fingertips and the rough brick behind her hair, the kiss of a cold breeze along her flushed cheeks and the dull burn of pain when she moves her shoulder — she's exquisitely aware of her own body, of all the places where she ends and the world begins.

"I knew you were a bearcat," Taylor says, breathless and laughing, and when Selena opens her eyes she can see the outline of her in the darkness, a mirror of light-headed relief against the opposite wall. "Wanna go dancing?"

"At this hour?" she asks, watching the shadows move around Taylor. She wants to reach out and trace the angle of her neck with her tongue, to slide that dress up past her hips and off, to taste the gunpowder on her mouth. She _wants_.

Taylor's exhale isn't quite a laugh, but Selena can see the edge of her smile. "This is when all the best places are just getting started," she says, and then tilts her jaw, listening. The gunfire has stopped. "Karlie knows what to do. Come on," she says, offering her hand, and Selena doesn't need to think before she takes it.

 

They find a cab to take them into Manhattan, the gun hidden behind Taylor's back and Selena's sweet smile, and Selena watches the lights throb and feels the echo of the city in her veins, the first coil of a thought that might feel like home.

The cab drops them outside an ice cream parlor. Taylor walks straight up to the door, holding the shotgun low and long against her thigh.

"Wait," Selena says, and crosses the street after her. "Is this your place?"

"One of them," Taylor says, and looks over her shoulder with a red-lipped grin. "I'll give you the whole tour some other night."

She knocks on the glass door, just three simple taps, and a moment later the main light inside the parlor switches on and a man in a perfect, pristine white uniform appears at a door behind the counter. He pauses, his gaze flicking clearly from Taylor, to her, to behind them, and then he strides over to the door and turns the latch.

"Miss Swift," he says, with a respectful nod, holding the door open for both of them before he shuts and locks it again.

He moves behind the counter, his hands and everything below his waist hidden behind solid wood. "What can I get for you this morning?"

Taylor says, "The usual."

"And for your friend?"

"She'll have the coconut special," Taylor says, and he nods and lifts his hands, empty, out from under the counter to bang three times on the wall behind him.

A panel of painted wood slides to one side. Selena lifts her chin and pretends she sees that kind of thing all the time.

Taylor sets the shotgun on the counter. "Take care of this, would you?" she says, and loops her arm through Selena's. He nods, picks up the shotgun, and switches off the main light on his way back through the staff door.

The sliding panel remains open, a glow like a dropped cigarette drifting up from somewhere below. There's music like distant train-tracks, pounding with brass and drums, echoing up towards them.

"This is one of my favorite places," Taylor says, catching Selena's eye as they start towards the light. "We can dance until dawn if you want."

In the cab Selena would have sworn that she never needed to sleep again, but something grey and sluggish is already creeping in around the edge of her awareness.

"We can try," Selena says, and grins back.

The club itself is at the bottom of a long flight of steps and a locked door, and all of it up until then could just be the cellar of an ice cream shop if it weren't for the jazz pulsing out from the walls.

Taylor knocks, the same three taps, and music and laughter and clinking glass swells out into the cellar and pulls them in like a tide. Selena dances until she's out of breath and her feet are no longer able to jive, and when everything wears away and her hands start shaking Taylor is there, holding her close and entwining their fingers like branches.

 

\---

 

"Where have you been hiding this stuff?" Taylor asks, glaring at the properly golden whiskey in her glass before she takes another sip.

"Under the piles of manure in the cattle shed," Selena says, sucking in her cheeks to keep her mouth under control as she looks off into the distance. Out of the corner of her eye she catches the movement of Taylor lowering her chin, looking up at her with narrow eyes and lowered brows. "It gives me well-aged whiskey in half the time and no one would ever dare to look there," she explains, light and casual, and can't stop the smile blooming across her mouth as Taylor laughs, bright and loud and delighted.

"There, now you know all my secrets," Selena says, grinning up at the open sky as she falls back on the blanket, her arms stretched lazily out behind her.

On the other side of the low hills the sun is dipping towards the horizon, painting the clouds pink and coral below the blue, and the unseasonal warmth of the day is already fading quickly. There's the remains of a picnic between them, bread from a local place in New York and strawberries from God knows where and a beautifully light cake that Taylor swears blind that she made herself — and, as with everything since she met Taylor, this wasn't planned.

("I need someone who can make this kind of pipe in pure copper and not try to sell me a painted car radiator," she remembers saying in the under-parlor speakeasy, halfway to thoroughly ossified and splaying her hands across the table, reaching for nothing.

"Let me," Taylor had said, pressing a seal of a promise against her cheek that was still there the next morning, a red memory of her lips.)

She's been back at the farm for a few days, moving her shoulder gingerly and finding new bruises in odd places every time she turns over in bed. The furnace had needed tending all morning, coaxing the first distillation out of the mash, and she was just considering heading back to the house for lunch when three distinct horn beeps cut through the click of cooling metal.

There had been a van at the edge of the field when she went out to look, all black and utterly unidentifiable, and Selena found she wasn't surprised at all when Taylor was the one who emerged from it, waving across the furrows — the wicker basket and picnic blanket tucked in with her new condenser was more of a shock. Selena brought out the freshly aged whiskey just so she could feel like she was contributing something other than the landscape.

Taylor is now propped up on one elbow, her temple resting on the palm of her hand as her hair spills loose and unstyled around her fingers. A short distance from their feet the river is rushing past with a gentle babble, eddying around the rocks and weeds of the riverbank.

Selena looks away from the first stars pinpricking their way through the dusky blue, looks at Taylor, and warmth lands heavy and demanding in her stomach as she catches the way Taylor is looking at her.

" _Selena_ ," Taylor says, her lip sliding out from between her teeth, and in the next breath Selena is pushing up on her elbows and Taylor is sliding closer and their lips meet in the middle, soft and desperate and perfect, tasting like whiskey and heat.

Her first thought is that this is a thing for nighttime, for the pinprick lights in the dark and dazzling contrasts and the giddy rush of the city, but then Taylor turns her jaw the other way and kisses her again, a little softer, a little longer, and Selena opens her mouth and finds herself thinking of cornfields and long summer days, bare skin under the sun and lips sticky with fruit straight off the tree.

She brushes her fingers along the delicate stretch of Taylor's neck, tucks her thumb under the dip of her jaw, and kisses back with all the distilled longing that's been coiled in her chest for weeks.

The sun has slipped away completely when Selena finally pulls away, flushed to her fingertips. Taylor looks — _God_ , Taylor looks as ruffled as she feels, lips parted and eyes heavy-lidded, but there's a glint behind the way Taylor lets her gaze follow her hand, skimming down the curves of Selena's waist.

A curl of excitement finds its way into Selena's lungs.

Taylor grins, knife-sharp, and says, "How do you feel about boats?"

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a quick list of my favourite/relevant things I found while researching for this:
> 
> [An amazing collection of prohibition-era things from New Jersey](https://co.monmouth.nj.us/documents/9/Prohibition_exhibition_%20FINAL.pdf), including a price list for bootlegged spirits and details of a gangster who may have been murdered for "giving organised crime a bad name."
> 
> [This](https://www.rmsothebys.com/en/auctions/MB09/Vintage-Motor-Cars-of-Meadow-Brook/lots/r132-1927-lasalle-roadster/199168) is Taylor's car (brand new for her, of course).
> 
> Obviously the character Olivia Benson didn't exist in 1927, so Taylor's cat is named after [Gloria Gilbert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beautiful_and_Damned).
> 
> [Handheld hair dryers existed!](http://yesterdays-print.com/post/144423785554/the-courier-harrisburg-pennsylvania-december)
> 
> Hip flasks in garters and coconuts filled with bootlegged spirits were very much a thing, but they weren't the most effective way of transporting it.


End file.
